Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Rabo Direct Pro 12 - Round 3 Wrap

DTH van der Merwe

With pressure increasing from England and France the round was more important than normal. England and France are fed up with the autmoatic entry of teams from the Rabo Direct Pro 12 while teams from the Aviva Premiership and Top 14 have to qualify. The controversial European policy enables tesams from the Rabo Direct Pro 12 to not take their own competition seriously. Edinburgh were Semi Finalists of last seasons Heineken Cup yet finshed in 11th out of 12th on the Rabo Direct Pro 12 table. Teams are free to field substandard teams rather than their best payers and this is not impressing clubs from England or France who ned to fight all season to make the competition. Round 3 of the competition was no exception with a number of teams not fielding their best players. Thge reigning champions, the Ospreys, for instance had a number of stars missing.

Edinburgh 41-10 Zebre

Zebre are new to the competition and new in general. The team was only formed earlier this year to replace Aironi who struggled in two seasons of Celtic-Italian rugby. Zebre are thus far not looking like being better. The team has some Argentine players and Matias Aguero was on the bench.

Ulster 20-19 Munster

The round four match between Ulster and Zebre has been postponned due to the tragic death of Ulster centre Nevin Spence. USA prop Callum Black was on the bench for Ulster and the Californian born Ronan O´Gara was on the bench for Munster.

Ospreys 10-28 Glasgow Warriors

USA age grade representative Hanno Dirksen started on the right wing for the Ospreys. Unfortunately he will never play for the USA after deciding to try to instead play for Wales. He played against Canada´s DTH van der Merwe thion Saturday and was outplayed as the Canadian flyer scored two tries. He was partnered on the wing by Tommy Seymour, also from the USA.

Dragons 5-16 Cardiff Blues

A good first round win counts for little when a team cannot back it up in subsequent rounds. The Dragons have let a good start slip and are now likely to stay in the bottom half of the competition standings.

Benetton Treviso 18-19 Leinster

A full strength Leinster would not struggle like this. The England and French clubs certainly have reason to be cross with the teams in the Rabo Direct Pro 12. Treviso outscored Leinster by two tries to one. Argentine flyhalf Alberto di Bernardo started at flyhalf while Argentine prop Ignacio Fernández Rouyet was on the bench. Canada´s Robert Barbieri started in Treviso´s backrow.

Connacht 11-24 Scarlets

A bonus point win for the Scarlets puts the region at the top of the table after three rounds. Tomás Vallejos Cinalli did not feature for the Welsh region due to his involvement in The Rugby Championship.